What a Tour

Today saw the first day in the Pyrenees, and it is now turning out to be a completely remarkable tour. Since before the Tour started, my money was on Alexandre Vinokourov to take the yellow; Robbie McEwen for the green and good old Michael Rasmussen for the polka dot. Vino deserves the tour win, for so long he has sat in the shadows of someone else and now with time against him, this could have been the last Tour to make his own. McEwen is just a remarkable sprinter and seems to have this ability to just appear from nowhere in the sprint to take a win. The climbers' jersey; well, is there anyone else that can climb like Rasmussen and consistently at that; two years running so far, seems only right to make it three. Yet, accident’s and strange team tactics have made a mess of my predictions. On the first stage, McEwen was involved in a crash just before the end, somehow he managed to make it back up to the front and win the stage. But it would later turn out to be worse than it seemed, as in a mountain stage he failed to finish within time and was eliminated. Then on Stage 5 Vino was in a accident which ended up with him having nearly 60 stitches in his knees and elbow has since left him dragging at the rear of the peloton. The only thing going for me was the reliable climber from Denmark, except that he is not only in the polka dot jersey but currently posing in a nice yellow outfit! It all happened in the mountains; as it always does, on Stage 8 into Tignes Rasmussen went off on one of his solo rides, dropping every climber in his wake. Unfortunately, Vino had now dropped 8 minutes, and it looked like he was out of the standings. One name that was on my lips just before the tour was Contador. After the prologue that name was slightly higher on the list as this Spaniard can Time Trial as well as climb. Since the Tour has been turned on its head each day, I kept my eye on Contador and thought this could well be a Tour winner in the future. After today's stage I have a strange feeling that this boy could well be making an extreme start to cycling, it is his first Tour and as well as holding on to the White jersey, he is now second in the standings. Whilst he can climb, and very well at that I do not think he will have the legs to take on Ramussen head to head but if it comes down to the last individual Time Trial, then he should have the upper hand. It would be wonderful to see Contador win, with Discovery calling it quits after this year they could do with a positive exit and since Armstrong’s retirement, I think they have lost the way a bit. But then this year’s Tour has just been one confused mess after another shocking accident, so expect everything to change and one of the complete outsiders will clinch the win on the line. Here is to some good cycling.